Survivor
by Just Slightly Obsessed
Summary: For Dess, Bixby has become a ghost town. With only Rex for company, her life has become unbearably dull. But when even he is forced to leave Bixby, strange things start to happen. DISCONTINUED
1. Chapter 1

**Hi. This is my first story on Fanfiction, for any record anyone feels like taking, and I hope you enjoy it. Please note that while I have attempted to put in the American spellings for things, as when it comes to Midnighters, it just has to be American, I myself am not, so apologies for any British/American spelling issues.**

**Disclaimer: Some witty variation on the words "I do not own Midnighters."**

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Dess switched her headlights off and reached into her bag for her phone. Switching it on, she winced as the glaring light assaulted her eyes. She rarely left it on anymore; Jonathan, Jessica and Melissa were gone, and it wasn't as if Rex was ever going to call her, especially not now. She sighed quietly.

She opened a picture on her phone and stared at it for a moment. It was a rare shot of the four others all standing together, laughing. Dess had never been one for sentimentality; the only time she ever sympathised with Melissa was when she imagined what it must be like to be tormented with the petty emotions of high school kids, day in, day out. But recently, she'd begun to miss the others more than before. It was almost as if she needed the picture to remind herself that they had ever existed.

_Get a grip, Dess._

Abruptly, she deleted it. Doing what she had switched her phone on for in the first place, she sent a message, the same message she sent every night at 11:55.

I'M OUTSIDE.

He wouldn't come. He never had, and for two weeks now Dess had spent her entire midnight sitting in her car outside his house. He hadn't been to school, he hadn't made any contact with the outside world, save with the policemen who had come every so often to ask after him. It was only by asking the policemen that Dess had found out what had happened at all. They were letting him off, for now.

But not much longer. It was the funeral tomorrow, and after that he'd be sent to a children's home in Houston, simply because his mother couldn't keep him on her adventures around the world. A children's home. Dess shuddered for Rex just thinking about it. He wasn't a child. Whatever he had done, he didn't deserve to be locked up in a place like that, with no lore, nobody to share the secret of midnight with, that bright, shiny atmosphere.

And all those kids, wondering around innocently, not knowing what could happen if they got on the wrong side of this strange guy in black…

She jumped as a knock on the window startled her. Glancing sideways, she saw it was Rex. Half relieved and half indignant, she unlocked the door for him.

"What the hell, Rex?"

"Sorry," he muttered as he sat down in the passenger seat and pulled the door shut. His voice was rusty with disuse, but at least it was his voice. Dess hadn't realised how much she'd been worried, what she'd have had to say to Melissa if Rex had done something stupid.

They sat in silence for a moment, not even flinching as the wave of the blue time passed over them like a shadow. Dess wondered what she was going to say. "Where have you been?" wouldn't do, as she'd known where he was all the time, and "You idiot! What have you been doing for the past two weeks?" hardly seemed appropriate for the circumstances.

Eventually she settled for, "How's Dag?"

"Fine. He's going to a new owner." He spoke in short, clipped sentences. If she hadn't known otherwise, Dess would've thought it was her Rex was angry at. She paused for a moment before continuing.

"Are you all right?"

He nodded slowly, somehow forcing a small smile. "Having spent most of my life doing everything at once, I now find myself with nothing to do at all."

Rex's collectedness seemed to release Dess' frustration. "They can't send you away. You're not a child. They can't put you in a children's home."

"I'm sixteen, Dess. They can."

"You've fought darklings, you've been kidnapped, you've saved the world. You've broken the law, been caught by the police, you've become the boyfriend of a lunatic with a huge antisocial problem . . . heck, you're half monster, Rex! You may be many things, but you're not sixteen."

He didn't say anything. Dess stared at him.

"If it was me, I'd have shot myself by now."

"I'm not you, am I?" Rex snapped, finally cracking. "Is that what you're implying, Dess? That I should shoot myself? Because someone's already suggested that I should commit suicide, and I'm beginning to wonder if there's some sort of conspiracy going on here."

"Finally! Some emotion! I was beginning to think you'd gone the same way as your dear old man."

There was silence. Dess cringed internally. _Idiot, idiot, idiot! What possessed you to say something like that?_

"Who told you to commit suicide?" she asked softly after a while.

"Melissa," came the reply. "When we saw the halfling girl for the first time, she told me to get some poison."

She held back a snort. Some girlfriend.

"Look, I'm sorry about . . ."

"It's fine."

"Why did you come?"

"I needed to talk to someone." He smiled weakly. "Preferably you."

"You should have contacted the others."

"How? By phone?" Rex snorted. "Give me credit, Dess, I'm getting better. Reading the odd text from you, or sitting in an immobile car, no problem. But typing in a number and having a phone conversation over great distance?"

"That's irrelevant. I could have called them."

"Then why didn't you?"

"Because it's your call." Dess sighed. "You should have done it, Rex. Melissa would've got here even if she were inches from death."

"They've been gone for two months, Dess. Has it occurred to you that they could be on another continent by now?"

"They'd have come."

"Maybe." He stared blankly out of the window. "I guess I just didn't want her to feel guilty."

"Who? Melissa?" She couldn't hold back her mirth this time. Rex glared at her.

"Hey. The only time you touched her she wasn't in a position to be feeling guilt."

"She should have been," Dess muttered. "Taking things from _my_ mind."

"I'm sorry for it, even if she never was." He glanced at her. "But then you did go and announce her secret to the whole world."

"It was yours too, remember."

"Cheers, Dess. That's exactly what I needed to hear right now."

"Sorry." She leaned back against the headrest, looking up at the roof of the car. "I know it was an accident."

"It still killed him, though, in the end."

"That's a lie, Rex."

"It isn't, and you know it." He was beginning to growl, his darkling side starting to creep in. "Stupid old man, looking for his spiders. So weak and frail, but arrogant, thinking he could find them himself. He had to fall straight into his flipping spider cage, didn't he?"

"Rex, stop it!"

He froze. Slowly, he ran a hand through his hair, now grown back to its familiar mess. "If the others come here before they come to Texas, tell Melissa that I'm sorry, will you?"

"You could contact her."

Rex shook his head.

"Rex. She'd want to know." Melissa may have been an absolute cow, but Dess was pretty positive this was the sort of thing that mattered to her.

He began to speak carefully, not looking at Dess. "It's not just about me. I've tried contacting her. I knew if I wanted to speak to her, I'd have to get used to technology. But there's no reply. She hasn't answered one of my texts."

Dess stared at him. "Flyboy too?"

"Uh-huh. So . . . theoretically . . ."

"They could be dead."

They didn't speak again for a long time. Dess' thoughts were going round in circles, from Rex leaving to the others being dead to her own loneliness once she was the only midnighter left in Bixby. Madeleine was long gone, her house invaded by daylighters, and even the darklings weren't around anymore. Midnight would return to being completely silent.

"You can't do this," she muttered. "And I'm not being selfish. You can't leave Bixby in this state, not the place where it all began. Think of the lore. Think of the history."

"If I had a choice, Dess, you know I wouldn't." Rex groaned as he glanced at the sky outside. "I'd better go. It's nearly the end of midnight."

Dess smiled sadly as Rex opened the door. They hadn't got on well most of the time. On the contrary, she'd thought Rex was completely selfish and big-headed on numerous occasions. A comment Jonathan had made once - "Those two pretty much set off my smarmy meter twenty-four, seven" - had stayed with her, simply because it described Rex and Melissa so well. Yet as she watched him step out into the waning blue of midnight, she couldn't stop herself from blurting out, "I'll miss you."

Rex looked at her for a moment before smiling properly, a glimpse of the old Rex, before the darklings had taken him. "Me too, Dess."

"See you, Darkling man."

"See you . . ." He paused, looking thoughtful. It appeared he'd only just realised that Dess didn't have a nickname. Flyboy, 11:59, the goddess, or whatever your particular nickname was for Melissa. Dess was the only one.

"Survivor," Rex smirked at last. Then he left.

Dess sat still as the last few seconds of midnight ticked away. Survivor. It fitted, she guessed. The only one left in Bixby, the single one. The one who did the math.

She smiled as she switched her car engine on.

Survivor.


	2. Chapter 2

**OK. Chapter 2. Enjoy.

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"Welcome, Dess!" Sanchez beamed as Dess strolled into the classroom – late, per usual. "Bus problems again?"

"Yeah." He never needed to know that Dess didn't take a bus; she didn't think she could stand to see his little heart broken by her lying to him.

"Well, sit down, sit down. Just so you know, we're recapping base 60 today, as revision for our little test next Monday." He chuckled. "Though I suppose you don't really need to revise for that, do you, Dess?"

_Great, Sanchez_, Dess thought bitterly. _You're really helping my chances of actually making a friend in this place._

Not that she'd really expected that to happen at all. The whole school had labelled her as a freak, the goth who was really good at math. Now she was the only 'goth' in Bixby, or would be by six o'clock this evening, and nobody really cared.

She turned to stare out of the window. The day was hot, and the air heavy with the threat of rain. By the time it was the funeral, it would be pouring down. Rex wouldn't notice, but his mother probably wouldn't go if it meant her new Gucci high heels would get wet. Dess snorted quietly to herself.

The seat next to her was still empty, the way it should always have been. Jessica had never been up to advanced classes, especially not trig. It would seem Dess' infamous 'grasp of the obvious' didn't work for Jessica. In what way was trigonometry difficult? Besides the staying awake part?

"Desdemona?"

Sanchez's tinny voice broke through her contemplation. She glanced up irritably. "Yes?"

He seemed taken aback. "Um . . . the answer to question 13?"

Question 13. Rex hadn't been able to answer any thirteenth question in any textbook after the incident in the desert.

She looked down at the book. "74.25."

"Correct." He hurried away from her, looking minorly terrified. Dess felt a small pang of remorse for having snapped at him, but she couldn't help it now. She couldn't turn back time, and if she could, she wouldn't be worrying about having offended a teacher.

For a moment, she wondered if there was a midnighter who would turn back time out there somewhere. Could they change things that happened? Could they stop the others from leaving, stop Rex's dad from falling into that glass cage? Even going back to speak to Madeleine seemed welcome right now.

_Will you quit being emotional, Dess?_ But she couldn't help herself from letting out a tiny sob as the first few drops of rain slipped down the window.

"Dess?" She looked up to see Sanchez gazing down at her concernedly. "We're doing page 43." He gestured around the classroom, where everyone else was working.

"Sorry." Dess tried to pull herself together. "I guess I'm just tired."

"Can I have a word outside?"

_Oh great. Now Sanchez is actually going to yell at me. Life as a lone midnighter is not going well._

Grudgingly, she stepped out of the classroom. Sanchez closed the door behind them before turning to look at Dess.

"I'm worried about you."

_Come again?_

"You've looked so much less lively since that incident at Halloween, with the fireworks. I understand your position. Those three were really good friends of yours, and it's terrible that they've gone. And now your other friend – Rex, isn't it? – he's gone too, and I can't help but wonder . . . are you all right?"

Dess almost laughed. She was sure he meant well, but she wasn't going to talk about her problems with a teacher, let alone her little puppy dog Sanchez. Even if she did tell him, she couldn't tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but.

He was looking at her for an answer now. She opened her mouth to speak.

"I-"

"Mr Sanchez!"

Both Dess and Sanchez turned to see the headmaster coming towards them, the glaring synthetic light bouncing off his shiny bald head. At his side was a girl about Dess' age, dressed completely in black. Her hair had been dyed, possibly with the same stuff that Rex used, to match her clothes, and she wore so much dark eye make up it was difficult to see her eye colour at all.

_So much for being the last goth in Bixby._

"Here we are. This is Ellie Denford, who's just moved here from New York." He smiled down at Dess patronisingly. "I suspect you'll be getting on with Desdemona very well, Ellie."

Dess shot him the evils. His smile faltered.

"Well, enjoy your classes, Ellie." He walked away swiftly before Sanchez could even get a word in, his tweed jacket bobbing as he went.

"I see . . ." Sanchez muttered. "OK, let's get you a seat, shall we?" He pushed open the door and allowed Ellie and Dess to file in.

There were a few chuckles as the class noticed the two of them waking side by side. Ellie grinned. Dess gritted her teeth. It seemed as if she'd be forced to get to know this new girl; yet again, the only spare seat was next to her.

_What is it with me and new girls?_

"Right. Here you are, Ellie." The teacher handed her a trig textbook. "If you could sit over there, next to Desdemona, that would be great."

"No, it would not," Dess muttered as she moved to her place, uncomfortably aware of Ellie behind her. She sat down slowly, and watched as the new girl took Jessica's old place.

"Hi," Ellie smiled. "You're Desdemona? That's an unusual name, isn't it?"

"Yeah. Call me Dess."

"Dess." She muttered it quietly to herself. "Yes. That suits you better."

"Well, Ellie doesn't really suit you, in all honesty."

She made a face. "I know. But I can't really shorten it to El, can I?" Laughing, she opened her trig book. "Base 60? I'm hopeless."

"Don't worry. Most people are."  
Ellie looked straight at her. "You'll have to help me with it."

Dess frowned. There was something seriously up with this kid. A goth, possibly the only one in the school, called Ellie, who laughs and speaks like a normal person, and then suddenly stares at you and practically commands you to help her with trig. Just slightly freaky.

"Oh crap. Question one . . . Dess, what the hell?"

Fifteen minutes and half a question later, Dess had established two facts about Ellie.

Yes, she was in fact unbelievably freaky.

She had not been lying when she'd said she was hopeless with base 60.

She was worse than Jessica. Even taking Dess' natural bias into account, being a polymath and all, Ellie still shouldn't have come anywhere near advanced classes. Maybe that seat was cursed. Maybe a polymath had been killed in that spot, and now anyone who sat there was doomed to be terrible at math forever more.

Ellie sighed. "I just don't get it."

"Well, think about it later. It's nearly next class anyway."

Sure enough, with a deafening buzz, the bell announced the end of trig. The class broke out into raucous chatter as they drew back their chairs and began packing their stuff up. Dess glanced up at the clock; it was 10:15. The funeral had already started. It wouldn't be long before Rex's old man was underground, and there was nothing keeping Rex in Bixby.

"So . . . I was wondering if, because I don't actually know anyone here, I could sit with you at lunch?"

Dess looked at Ellie, who was smiling, and felt a strong urge to smack her across the face. She restrained herself only because that would be a very Melissa thing to do.

"Um, yeah. Fine." At least she wouldn't be sitting alone again.

"Cool. See you!" Ellie left, still smiling that infuriating smirk. Dess ground her teeth together as she rammed her trig textbook into her schoolbag and swung it off the desk.

It started raining as she headed towards her next lesson.

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**Is Ellie relevant to the story? Yes. Is what you're thinking correct? Probably. Is she an annoying, attention-seeking Mary-Sue character who is a midnighter, has every single power, becomes Dess' friend and saves the day? No. Just had to let you know. :)**


	3. Chapter 3

"Heya, Dess!"

Dess hid her groan behind a half-hearted reply: "Hi, Ellie."

Ellie sat down opposite her with a flask and a small plastic box filled with some sort of slimy green stuff - Dess assumed it was pasta with pesto - and tea. Both revolting. Any faint hope she'd had of getting to like this girl had gone already.

"Ugh. I've got so much homework, I think I'm drowning in it. And it's only been set in two subjects." She let out a high, distinctive laugh. Dess reckoned this meant she found something funny, but was at a total loss as to what it might be.

Either Ellie noticed her lack of mirth, or she always explained her jokes afterwards. "See, one of them's trig. And I'm completely useless at it – well, you'd know, wouldn't you?" Laughing again, she took the lid off her box. Definitely pesto.

"What're you eating?" Ellie asked, pointing at Dess' sandwich.

"Peanut butter." Not on banana bread; she hadn't come round to Jonathan's extremely acquired tastes just yet.

"Nice." She took a bite of pasta. "Personally, I can't stand the stuff. It sticks to the roof of my mouth…" She shuddered.

Dess remembered the conversations she'd had with the others at this very table - about midnight, darklings and math, watching Rex's brain and Melissa's headphones overheating while Jonathan and Jessica sorted out their contact-during-daylight problems. When the blue time started ripping, Flyboy had been hovering just above where Ellie was sitting now. It had never seemed very sophisticated at the time – kick ass cool, maybe, but not intellectual, especially with Jessica around. But right now, sitting with some weirdo discussing peanut butter, Dess wondered where the hell it had all gone.

"Yeah. I reckon I have a bit of a peanut butter phobia. Is there such a thing?"

"Nutteraphobia," Dess muttered. "Thirteen letters."

"You know what?" Ellie leaned in, as if she was about to disclose a great secret. "I have the weirdest fear. I'm afraid of the ground."

"The ground?"

"It's just… it's so big and… heavy."

Dess laughed. "Well observed."

Ellie gave her a strange, almost scanning look. "OK, then. What are you scared of?"

"Nothing."

She raised an eyebrow. "That can't be true. Everyone's scared of something, Dess. What's your fear? Spiders?"

She shuddered. "No."

Ellie let out a laugh. "It is. I saw you shiver. You're afraid of spiders."

"I'm really not."

"You are."  
"I'm not… going to get into these sorts of arguments," Dess finished lamely. "They're pointless. And just for the record, I'm not scared of spiders. I just have a friend who is completely freaked out by them. He told me some stories."

"You have a friend? Is he here?"

Dess tried not to get insulted by Ellie's almost surprised tone of voice, and failed miserably. "No. He left."

"When?"

She hesitated. "Two weeks ago."

"Where is he now?"

"So how come you joined in the middle of the year?" Dess asked loudly, glaring at Ellie pointedly. She blinked, surprised for a moment, then seemed to understand.

"Oh. My parents died."

Dess' mouth dropped open. "Really?"

"Yeah. Gas leak." She speared a piece of pasta with her fork. "Me and my brother went to live with a friend of theirs, who also lived in New York. But it just got too much, living so close to the place where my parents had died, so we moved out here."

"Gosh. I'm sorry."

"It's fine."

Dess felt a twinge of guilt, but quickly swallowed it down. After all, for someone to be this weird they had to have been seriously messed up before any tragic accident.

Unless, of course, you were a black-wearing, previously abused seer who has a strange fascination with dominos.

_Will you shut up? They're gone, all right, and comparing each and every little thing to them is not going to bring them back! _

"So… what about you?" asked Ellie.

"Wha-?" Dess blinked.

"Your parents. You still got both of them?"

"Oh… yeah."

"Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

"No, it's just me." Maddy had made sure of that.

"Pets? Boyfriend? Skeletons?" She laughed. "You're really not very talkative, are you, Dess?"

"No, no, no and no."

"Oh well. Guess I'll have to do the talking for you, then." Both the frequency and pitch of Ellie's laugh were becoming extremely irritating. "Your name is Desdemona, you're sixteen, you've got both parents, no brothers, sisters, pets, boyfriends or skeletons, and you're not afraid of spiders. Oh, and you're a math genius. Anything else?"

"Not much. Unless you count the fact that I spend one hour every night out searching for creatures of evil with old hubcaps while everyone else is asleep," Dess said dryly. Ellie hesitated before laughing, sensing a joke.

"Me too! Just a day in the life of a goth, I suppose."

Dess almost choked on the remains of her peanut butter sandwich, but managed to swallow it down. She stood up almost instantly. "Um… yeah. Look, I gotta go see a teacher about something now. I'll see you around."

"Oh, I'll come with you," Ellie replied, standing up as well. "I need to get to know some people around here – might as well start with the teachers."

"No. I mean, it's probably better if you don't. I'm in a bit of trouble with this particular teacher."

"Ah. OK." Ellie smirked. "Sure."

"Um… see you," Dess finished lamely, before turning and walking away as swiftly as possible.

It was pouring outside. Just as she had predicted. As usual. Dess felt tempted to head towards the library, get out a big book of trigonometry and just sit reading for the next half hour, feeling the numbers wash over her with their steady, comforting rhythm. Perfection.

She needed calming anyway. Her mind was buzzing with annoyance, confusion and lack of purpose. There was nothing else to do. Creating weapons, finding tridecalogisms, all that was worthless now. The secrets of midnight had moved elsewhere and she was stuck here, with Ellie and Sanchez for company. It was, as Jonathan so well put it, 'Flatland.'

Maybe the end of the world wouldn't have been so bad after all.

_Shut up, Dess,_ she told herself, as she headed towards the library.


	4. Chapter 4

**OK, here's Chapter Four. I'd like to thank Elemarth for betaing this and the previous chapter, and in advance for the rest of the story.**

**Sorry for the shortness - the next one will be longer. Enjoy!  
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**Dess suddenly became conscious that midnight had arrived.

Opening her eyes, she leaped to the window and glanced outside, momentarily panicking in case she had slept through half of it. However, the dark moon was still low in the sky, and she breathed a sigh of relief as she sat back down on her bed.

Before realising that she might as well sleep through midnight because, for the first time in fifteen years, it was empty. Dess had felt alone for the first eight years of her life, but in a way it was worse _knowing_ that there was nobody out there.

Nobody out there. Melissa's heaven. Dess's hell.

How could it be that now, when midnight stretched all across the world, she was alone? How did that make any mathematical sense?

She rammed her head once against the wall, sending a crack echoing through the abandoned blue time. She froze instinctively, then laughed softly. Midnight was a time for sneaking and whispering, even if logically it was the time for screaming and shouting. Besides, Rex had never left any time for yelling.

An idea sparked up in Dess' brain, and was instantly pushed back down again by her common sense, a gift which had seemed to be unique to her during the last few months before Samhain. _Now you have, in fact, gone insane, Dess. _

Slowly, she got up from her bed and crept out of her room. No. She corrected her walk, beginning to stomp down the hallway as loudly as she could. Reaching the landing window, she searched for the key, which, as usual, wasn't where it was supposed to be.

Sighing heavily, she turned and stomped back to her parents' room. More cautiously, she opened the door and scanned the top of the dresser, trying not to look at the dead figures of her mom and dad. Even now, stiffs freaked her out.

The key was there. She grabbed it and returned to the window. Opening it as far as possible, she took a deep breath and clambered up onto the windowsill, before putting one leg tentatively out of the window and onto the lowest part of the roof.

She could feel gravity pulling her down. If she took her other leg outside, she would undoubtedly fall to her death. Dess studied the angles carefully. She knew basic physics – nothing Flyboy style, but enough to allow her to calculate the way she would have to move. Very slowly, she leaned forwards and down until she could slip her head and shoulders through the window.

Her foot slipped, and her hands leapt instinctively for the window. Heart pounding, Dess waited for a second for her breathing to slow once more, before turning slightly so she was facing indoors. Her right knee was still on the inside windowsill, but there was nothing for her to place it on.

The top of the roof was just out of reach. If she could leap up and grab it, she could pull herself up and she'd be safe. She could see the action in her mind, all the numbers were whizzing around her brain, telling her she could make it, but her heart was still dancing around like a caffeinated three year old.

Carefully, she reached upwards. Her fingers scraped the top of the roof, but couldn't quite curl around it. It was now or never. With a deep breath, Dess pushed off from the ledge.

Both hands grabbed the rooftop, and she heaved herself up, refusing to look over the other side to the ground below. Only once she was sitting at the top did she finally allow herself to look down.

It wasn't half as spectacular as some of the things she'd seen flying with Jonathan, but it was still pretty cool. Dess grinned to herself as she looked out over the few streets she could see. Nobody else was out here, nobody at all. She opened her mouth and yelled.

"HELLO!"

The particles of the blue time seemed to pick up her voice and resonate it throughout the city. She laughed.

"I AM DESS! QUEEN OF MIDNIGHT!"

It sounded like the sort of thing some lunatic mindcaster from the old Bixby would have screamed. Possibly Maddy.

"CATEGORICALLY UNCONQUERABLE ILLUMINATIONS! MATH IN THE BLUE TIME KICKS ASS!"

Nothing responded. Dess yelled harder.

"JESSICA VANILLA IS SOOOO ELEVEN FIFTY NINE! FLYBOY WILL BE DATING AN EIGHTEEN YEAR OLD AT NINETY! REX GREENE IS A UBER-SCARY PSYCHO DARKLING MAN! MELISSA IS THE QUEEN OF ALL -"

Something moved.

Dess cut off mid insult. Was there a darkling down there? Slowly, she reached down to her pocket, where she still had a bangle or two of stainless steel, kept just in case some embodiment of pure evil decided to try its luck with her. She kept her eyes fixed on the spot where she had seen it, unsure if she was hallucinating or not.

"Annihilations," she whispered softly, before flinging one of the bangles as hard as she could down into the shadows. It fell short; she heard it hit the ground with a soft clink. Nothing stirred.

If a darkling had been down there, it would have run for its life at the very sight of stainless steel.

But she was sure she had seen something.

Previous extravagancy forgotten, Dess turned around and slipped down the roof, clinging to the top with her fingers. She managed to swing her legs through the open window without falling to her death, before turning around and slamming it shut.

There was no way there was anything out there.

Nevertheless, Dess found herself back in bed, staring out of the window long before the dark moon had set.


	5. Chapter 5

**Sorry for the brief delay. I'd like to say thanks to those people who have reviewed this story; it's much appreciated. Here's chapter five - enjoy!**

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Dess hadn't been expecting much, not really.

Sure, she might have _dreamed _later that night that the movement had been the others trying to spring a surprise on her and then deciding that actually it would be better to suddenly turn up at school the next day, but that didn't mean she expected it to happen.

Yet there was still the tiniest hope in her mind as she walked to school the next day that something had changed, that she hadn't imagined it. Even the ransacking of a house or someone's strange disappearance would have satisfied her.

But there was nothing. No announcements in assembly, no hushed whispers in the study hall, well, not more than usual. It reminded her of the times she'd had massive darkling scraps in the middle of the city with Melissa and Rex, nearly getting herself killed, and then the next day, there was no sign that anything had happened.

And all the while, Ellie clung to her like a limpet.

It wasn't like she didn't appreciate the company sometimes. But when Ellie made stupid comments, or laughed like a vulture with a throat infection, Dess yearned for the sarcastic banter of the other midnighters. And as for lessons - how Ellie had got into advanced class trig was a mystery that philosophers would be discussing for years to come.

It was in trig that she lost it. Ellie, having asked the same question about the same section for the tenth time, drove Dess to stand up, grabbing an unsigned hall pass from her bag and handing it to Sanchez, who looked at it with bewilderment.

"Can I go to the bathroom? Please?"

It only took a second for Sanchez to compose himself enough to sign it. Dess muttered a 'thank you' before hastily leaving the room and heading for the bathroom. Once there, she locked herself in a cubicle and sat on the closed lid of the toilet.

What had she done to deserve a life like this? Which pivotal darkling had she cold-bloodedly murdered? How had she changed the world for the worse?

She hadn't. She'd just put all her energy into midnight. That had been a good idea at the time, what with the darklings and the risking her life and all that. Besides, midnight was just better than daylight. End of story. But right now, midnight sucked, and it was likely to suck for a long time. And because of that, she lived for the daylight. Which sucked even more.

So now, maybe it was time to put some energy into the daylight.

Dess smirked. An ironic statement, and one which would never, ever be associated with herself. And maybe it should.

It would be difficult. She was weird, always had been, and it would be difficult to change that. And worse, if she wanted to make any friends, she'd have to deal with people like Ellie. That thought was almost enough to put her off the whole idea.

But even if she didn't make any friends, Dess forced herself to think, she was content with solitude. Just to stop moping around being miserable for a change would make things better. And organize a trip to Houston as soon as physically possible.

_ So stop lounging around, get back in that classroom, sit down next to that limpet and put on your best Melissa impression._

"With pleasure," she muttered. She unlocked the door, washed her hands and headed back to the classroom.

As she walked through the door of the trig classroom, she could feel all eyes on her. She went up to the front desk and quietly said a heart-felt apology to Sanchez, who accepted it immediately. Dess then went to sit back down next to Ellie, who took the first opportunity to lean over and whisper, "Problems?" to her.

"Yeah," she replied sullenly, returning to her trig book and pretending to have to concentrate.

As the lesson drew to a close, Sanchez called the class to attention.

"OK, people, shut your books please. I have something to announce."

_Great. Now Sanchez is going on paternity leave._ Did he even have a wife? It was astonishing how little Dess actually knew about her 'favorite' teacher.

"Many of you will remember that two months ago, there was a series of disappearances."

Dess jumped, and stared at Sanchez. Had he just said that… there was no way he just said…

There was an uncomfortable stir among the students. Dess knew that none of them cared about Melissa's disappearance, but Jonathan and Jessica had been well-liked from a distance by many people, as it turned out.

"The three students in question, Jessica Day, Jonathan Martinez and Melissa . . ." Sanchez trailed off, not seeming to be able to remember Melissa's last name. Not that anyone remembered, except maybe Rex. "The students have still not appeared. It is believed, as many of you know, that Jessica was abducted. As for the other two, nobody quite knows, but it is possible that they too were taken."

To Sanchez's credit, he didn't even hint at some of the other theories that had been suggested by the police. Despite this, Dess didn't need to be a mindcaster to hear the thoughts running through the heads of the rest of the class. Jonathan and Melissa had gone missing about a week after Jessica had, with Melissa's car. Jonathan had only been in Bixby for two years, and he'd been caught up with the police uncountable times, getting Jessica into trouble a few days after having got here.

There were some very suspicious rumors running around, and all hell would break loose if any one of them managed to reach Flyboy's ears. Dess hoped that, if it did, she would be there to watch.

"So on Wednesday evening, there's going to be a…" Sanchez pondered for a moment. "Reception, in honour of the three students. It starts at 7 o'clock, in the school hall." He looked sincerely at the class. "I hope to see you all there, especially seeing that Jessica was a member of our group for the short while that she was here."

"Will their families be there?" one kid asked warily. It was common knowledge that Melissa's parents were slightly out of it, especially now that they weren't getting their daily top-up of mindcaster magic, although that was slightly less common knowledge.

"No. Jonathan and Melissa's parents will not be attending, and Jessica's cannot, as you know."

Dess cringed internally. She'd semi-forgotten that the Days had left for New York. If they hadn't, she might even have been able to talk to Beth. But no. They'd gone too.

Ellie, who had been sitting wide-eyed through all of this, whispered to Dess under cover of the bell, "What on earth? You have to tell me."

"I'd rather not."

"Why not? I'm dying! Who are they? What happened?"

"They were some kids who mucked around one day and got nabbed. Now go ask someone else. I've got stuff to do." Dess swung her bag onto her back and left the classroom.

_Wow. That was easy. With any luck, no more limpet._

But now she had other things to worry about. A reception. She'd have to go, of course – she'd hung out with Melissa for years and Jessica had been her trig buddy. But people casting her glances, either sympathetic or scornful, teachers making speeches about how much the others were missed while students used it as an excuse to get drunk... that wasn't Dess' idea of a good time.

And that's what she needed to have, now more than ever.

But honestly, what were her chances?


	6. Chapter 6

**Hey guys! Firstly, I'm really sorry that this has taken so long to write. It's been over a month! Again, very sorry. Also, a big thanks to all those who reviewed, particularly Tridecawho! Enjoy!**

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Dess turned off the headlights and sat for a moment in the darkness of her car.

All around her, people were heading for the school building, wearing dresses and suits, leaning on the arms of their various partners and laughing. Like they were going to a ball or something. Dess sighed, silently vowing not to get herself dragged into taking any drunks to hospital. Not even if there wasn't anyone else sober enough to take them.

_All righty, then. Time to face the music._

Checking her appearance one last time in the glass of her windows, she opened the door and stepped out of the car, almost ripping her dress in the process. She swore quietly. It was longer than the ones she usually wore; she'd need to be careful.

Locking the car, she followed the mass of people towards the school. A few glanced at her; Dess assumed it was because of her demeanor and turned to glare at them. To her surprise, the couple whose eyes she caught held her gaze. One guy actually gave her a quick, sympathetic smile before turning back to his friends. For some reason Dess didn't feel patronized.

It was nice.

The school hall was jam packed. Dess squeezed past people to reach the centre of the room. A long table lined one wall, groaning with plates of neatly cut sandwiches and celery sticks. Prefects carried trays of various drinks around like waiters. Dess took a glass of orange juice from one and sipped it as she glanced around.

Up on the stage, a podium had been placed in the centre. A screen hung from the roof, with large pictures of Melissa, Jonathan and Jessica projected onto it. Dess smiled briefly, painfully aware of the intrigued glances being sent her way, before scanning the room for a spare chair. Spotting one in the corner, she stole over to it and sat down quickly. The sooner all the speeches and things were over, the better.

Soon enough, a few pompous looking men, the school principle one of them, made their way up onto the stage. The principle called the room to order, before smiling synthetically down at them all.

"Good evening, and thank you all for coming."

Dess was suddenly filled with the urge to run out of the hall as quickly as possible. She didn't want to sit here and listen to total strangers talk about her... friends, for lack of a better word, as if they knew them. Nobody who hadn't met Jessica could know the emptiness which filled the spaces her confused questions used to live in, nobody who hadn't met Jonathan could feel the gravity which dragged down every discussion not interrupted by his light-hearted jokes, nobody who hadn't met Melissa could understand the guilty relief Dess felt every waking minute at not having to compete with her over... over what? They'd fought for the hell of it, for the knowledge that, whether they hated you or not, someone was there to watch your back when psycho-kitty came over for dinner.

Dess felt like screaming profanities at the principle, who was now lying with the skill of a master about his affection for the missing students. How dare he put on this token gesture of a reception for three kids who had saved his skin and the skin of every other worthless high-school stereotype in this room? How dare he confuse Dess' resolve to move on and start her life again? What the hell was she doing here, sitting in this hall waiting for someone to send her a kindly glance or... why was she even thinking this?

She placed her weight on her knees, getting ready to stand up and make a bolt for the doors, when she spotted a familiar face among the mass of people, probably one of the only ones who was paying attention to the principle. As she watched, Dess was stunned to see real tears welling up in Sanchez' eyes as he looked at the picture hanging above the stage, and with a sudden epiphany realised that Sanchez had been fond of Jessica, perhaps even in the same way he was fond of Dess, minus the astonishing skill the latter had for his subject which the former clearly didn't.

She remembered how concerned he had seemed when he thought – correctly – that she was upset over her friends, or lack thereof. Sanchez was better than a decent teacher; he was a good guy. A guy who was here to remember the student he thought had been abducted and possibly killed two months ago. And sure, Jessica hadn't been abducted or killed, but her family were mourning her, and her boyfriend was going to die when she turned nineteen, and Dess missed her. She missed all of them.

She stayed in her seat.

Once all the speeches were over and the people in the hall had begun to mull once again, Dess quietly got up from her seat and headed over to Sanchez. He was facing the other way, so he didn't know she was coming until she tapped him gently on the shoulder.

"Hey Sanchez."

He whipped around nervously, before smiling. "Desdemona. It's good to see you."

"You too." She smiled at him.

He lowered his voice. "How are you coping? I know it'll take a long time, believe me, I've had experience, but you seem all right."

"Yeah, I guess." She frowned. "If you don't mind me asking...?"

"What experience?"

Dess nodded. Sanchez smiled sadly.

"It always strikes me how the people I know reasonably well rarely know the story behind what troubles me day and night. Oh, don't worry about it," he hastily said as Dess opened her mouth to apologise, "it's okay, it's nobody's fault. I was just observing."  
"If you don't want to tell me, that's okay..."

"No, no, Dess, it's fine." He took a deep breath. "My wife died."

"Oh."

_Good answer, Dess._

"Yes, well. She died in a car accident six years ago."

"I'm sorry."

"I am too. I'm even sorrier because I've had to try and forget her, for the sake of my two sons." He took a sip of the drink which was shaking in his hand. "I've tried to bring them up all right, but I'm terrified that mourning their mother all this time will have destroyed their lives... I'm such a terrible father."

Dess was simultaneously horrified that she hadn't known about any of this and mortified that he was telling her. This was the sort of thing you were supposed to hear through a friend, through kindly meant gossip that made even the harsher students show Sanchez a little respect. But she'd never been one for gossip, not of the daylight sort.

"I don't think you'd be a terrible father," she muttered, hardly believing she was saying the words.

Sanchez frowned at her, not seeming to understand, before his face broke out into a smile. "Thank you, Dess. I only wish that were true."

The awkwardness of the situation made Dess almost glad that someone decided to walk into her at that moment. She jumped backwards, as did the guy who had collided with her.

"Oh my gosh... I am so sorry."

She glanced up to see a tall, sandy haired boy with clear grey eyes staring at her with evident mortification. She didn't recognise him, but that didn't mean she hadn't seen him somewhere before; Dess didn't really pay much attention to anything. Checking she hadn't spilt orange juice on either of them, she shook her head.

"It's okay. No harm done."

The guy smiled at her, and walked away. Dess couldn't help but follow him with her eyes, and was astonished when he put an arm around a girl with dyed black hair and a lot of eye make-up. What was he doing with Ellie? Was he her boyfriend? Brother? Just some kid she'd found to hang out with?

Turning her attention back to Sanchez, she was relieved to find that the awkward moment had passed.

"Dess, I have to be getting back soon; my youngest is only eight. Listen, don't worry about them, all right? Rex can take care of himself, and you'll see him again. As for the others," here he sighed, "we can only hope. But hear this from a man who knows what it's like – it will pass. Eventually, your duties will have to take over from your feelings." He smiled. "Me, for my sons. You, for the rest of your life."

Dess wasn't quite sure what to say, but she settled for an embarrassed thanks. Sanchez smiled at her again and walked away.

She needed air. Heading out of the building, she sat down on a deserted bench. The night was cool and crisp, the sort of night usually spent going to the theatre or going on a walk. The sky was clear, and she could see a few of the stars as her eyes adjusted to the darkness of space behind them. She took a sip of juice.

Dess would never have taken advice from a trig teacher before Samhain, not even about trig. What the heck was she doing sitting here and wondering if she should be more like Sanchez? He'd never had to save the world. He'd never been under pressure to get from one side of Bixby to another by clinging to a guy's hand in order to fight off some monsters and set off a couple of fireworks so the entire city wouldn't be eaten. Actually, few people had.

But she'd been thinking the same things as he had a few days ago. She needed to get on with her life. She'd kicked Ellie off her, and now she was alone again, sure. But Ellie had made friends. She'd managed to cling to that sandy-haired guy. And what Ellie could do, Dess could do. Simple as that.

Drinking down the rest of her orange juice, Dess stood up to go back inside.

And fell down again.

Her legs had just collapsed beneath her, like they didn't have the energy to hold her weight despite the small glass of sugar she'd just consumed. Not only that, but her eyes were starting to close, the lights in the sky above her dimming as her eyelids dropped closer and closer together. Her head was foggy, and she had absolutely no idea what was going on, but she was so tired...

She woke abruptly to bright light, a bush, and a tangle of dirty blonde hair over her face.

"What?" she muttered groggily.

"Wakey, wakey, Dess. Rise and shine!" a familiar voice called.

"What?" she repeated, blinking as a hallucination came into focus.

Because it had to be a hallucination. Either that, or Melissa was frowning down at her with an expression somewhere between anxiety and fear.

"We are in so much trouble."


	7. Chapter 7

**Hi guys. Here's Chapter Seven, and a bit more action. Thanks to all those people who reviewed - you guys are great!**

**Enjoy! :)**

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"Melissa?"

"Yup."

"What the heck are you doing here?"

"Good to see you too, Dess. Much as I'd love to sit around here and have a much-needed catch up, we've got somewhere to be."

Dess sat up, her head spinning. The bright light from the torch was hurting her eyes, and she batted it away groggily. "Melissa, hold on a second. What's going on?"

"We don't have a second, Dess." Melissa grabbed her arm with a gloved hand and tried to pull her up off the floor. "We need to get going."

"Calm down, Mel." Dess turned slightly to see Flyboy standing nearby, a worried look on his face. "She can afford to get her head on straight first."

"No, she can't." Melissa tugged even harder, and Dess was forced to stand up to stop her arm being ripped off. As soon as she was on her feet, she was being half dragged away from the bush.

"OK, OK!" she snapped. "I can walk myself, you know."

Melissa didn't loosen her grip. "We don't have time for walking. We need to get out of here."

Dess blinked a couple of times, trying to adjust her eyes to the darkness. She figured it was about eleven o'clock or so. "What happened?"

"We'll explain in the car."

"In the car?"

"That's what I said, genius." Melissa shouted back to Flyboy. "Are you coming?"

"I'm right behind you, sunshine."

Dess saw Melissa's car, battered and tired-looking, parked badly on the road outside the school. They headed over there faster than Dess had thought physically possible, Melissa already reaching into her pocket for the keys as she opened the car and shoved Dess inside.

"Seatbelt on," she ordered, before slamming the door and entering the car herself, sitting down on the drivers' seat. Jonathan got in beside her, only just managing to close the door before Melissa started the ignition and threw the car into reverse. Flyboy's head almost crashed though the windscreen.

"When is anyone going to tell me what the _hell_ is going on?" Dess yelled.

Jonathan swore loudly, fumbling with his seatbelt while turning to face her. "Have there been any new kids at school recently?"

"A couple." Dess rolled her eyes. "One really annoying one at that."

"Anyone called Ellie?"

Dess could have sworn that her heart stopped. "Yeah. She sits next to me in trig, in Je-" She hastily broke off at the look on Flyboy's face. "I nicknamed her the limpet. She clung to me like anything until I told her to back off. Kept asking me stupid questions like 'Are you afraid of spiders?'"

"Yeah. Well, that would be because she's been asked to spy on you by a group of Midnighters who reckon they can take over the world."

Dess looked at him. "No way."

"You'd better believe it."

"Ellie can't be a spy! She's an utter imbecile... it's going against every law of nature ever written that someone like Ellie is a spy!"

She stared at the two of them, expecting one of them to laugh and say that they were joking. When nobody did, she forced herself to calm down.

"What happened to me?"

"We don't know." Melissa was driving at a speed Dess was sure was far over the speed limit, but she still managed to reply. "We just found you passed out behind that bush. Figured you might have got hit by something or got drunk – we knew about the reception."

"No... I didn't drink anything..."

"Well there was a glass beside you. What was left of it, anyway."

Dess remembered. She'd had a glass of orange juice, and had finished drinking it just before... she couldn't remember. That was probably when she'd passed out.

And there had been that guy. That guy who had bumped into her, when she was talking to Sanchez.

"Someone spiked my drink!" she nearly yelled again.

"For goodness' sake, Dess, stop shouting! I'm trying to concentrate!" Melissa shrieked back. Dess found that hard to believe. Melissa's eyes were sweeping all over the place, her fingers were clenched on the steering wheel and she seemed to hardly notice the road. The only time Dess had seen Melissa this worried was when...

Oh.

Oh crap.

"What's happened?" she asked, urgently. "What's happened to Rex?"

Melissa stiffened at his name. Jonathan, to Dess's utter surprise, patted her reassuringly on the shoulder, despite looking pretty anxious himself. He turned to Dess.

"We reckon he's been taken. Either that, or he's about to be."

"Again?" That boy had a talent for getting kidnapped.

"But it's not Grayfoots this time." Jonathan lowered his voice out of habit, despite the fact they were no longer discussing secret affairs in the middle of a crowded cafeteria. "We met these Midnighters. And they thought that, with the help of Midnight, they could take over the world. But they're very interested in Bixby - you know, the whole 'centre of Midnight' thing, and the Midnighter history. And they don't have a seer."

"So they're planning on using Rex?"

"Exactly. Or so we think. What happened with you seems to make that suspicion pretty real, though."

"What did happen with me?"

"That kid Ellie? She's one of them. See, because we didn't know what happened to Rex, they didn't either. So they came here, looking for him. Turns out he wasn't here, but you were, and they tried to use you to find out where he was."

"And it worked," Dess muttered bitterly. So, this was the reason behind Ellie's annoying behaviour. Trying to pester her into giving away information about their spider-fearing target.

"So where are we headed now?"

"Texas," Melissa answered, her eyes trying to focus on the road. "Houston."

"The long way round," Jonathan added. "We've got to pick Jess up first."

"And what if they've already got there?"

"We don't know, Dess," he answered. "But we're taking it one step at a time."  
"Does Jessica know about this?"

"Of course. Melissa, don't try and go straight to Houston. You're not fooling me. Oklahoma City is the other junction."

Melissa growled in frustration, but did what he asked.

"Oklahoma City? What's Jess doing there?"  
"We dropped her off there last night." Jonathan looked apologetic. "See, it took us a while to work out what was going on. We tried to keep in touch with as many Midnighters as possible, until they settled down, you know? So we called these four – they were from New York City – and they didn't answer. Eventually, we realised something was up, and we tried to call Rex, but some lady picked up and said she didn't know a Rex. We were wondering what the hell was going on, and, well, Melissa got a bit freaked out and insisted that we come over here and see if you guys were OK."

"By 'you guys' I assume you mean Rex."

"Well... she meant Rex, I meant you. Jess meant both."  
"Good enough for me."

"So we came over. It's difficult getting around, though; every Midnight I have to take Jess as far as possible by flying, and then come back so I can tell Melissa where to go so we can pick her up again." Flyboy sighed. His striking face seemed to have aged considerably over the past few months. "We left her in Oklahoma, so that's where we're headed."

"Does that mean we're travelling to Houston at the speed of how-far-you-can-fly-Jess-in-half-an-hour kilometres per day?" Dess asked, working out the math. Alone, Jonathan could travel up to 200 km/h. With Jess, that would probably be taken down to 150. Half of 150 was 75. From Oklahoma City to Houston was about 700 kilometres, which meant...

"Nine point three recurring days."

"What?" Melissa nearly crashed the car as she jerked her head around to stare at Dess.

"Melissa! Trying not to get us killed would be a good idea!" Jonathan yelled. Melissa hardly noticed.

"Nine and a third days to get to Houston? That's over a week?" she shrieked. "Rex could be taken by then, he could be dead by then, he could be taking over the world by then..."

"This is Rex we're talking about," Dess reminded her. "He can take care of himself."

"Yeah, like he looked after himself on that day he got fused," Melissa spat back. "And that time he ran my car into a field of cacti before deciding to wander out into the desert alone with darklings from prehistoric times."

"He's still Rex. He's not an idiot."

"You don't even know these people, Dess. You don't know how persuasive they are." Melissa's eyes were getting suspiciously watery, and Dess wasn't sure how to cope with a tearful mindcaster. "And you're right, he's still Rex. He's still too smart for his own good. He's still half-darkling, he's still got this idea at the back of his mind that all humans are prey and he's still dangerous."

"You haven't seen Rex for three months," Dess said hotly. "He's getting better, Melissa, as you'd know if you'd ever replied to his texts, or mine, for that matter. He's been trying. And if he turns to the darkling side again, because he thinks that's the only way he's going to be a real Midnighter again, I wouldn't blame him. I'd blame you."

Melissa's entire body stiffened. She didn't reply; neither did Jonathan. Dess frowned. She hadn't meant to get so angry, but she guessed her frustration had finally caught up with her. Still, there was something very odd about the way these guys were acting. Melissa was wearing gloves again, something she'd stopped doing when she'd learnt to control her mindcasting. Jonathan was tense and nervous, despite the fact that it was Rex in trouble, and a world where Midnighters ruled over everyone else had never seemed like a bad idea to him. Something was wrong.

It was nearly Midnight. They were approaching Oklahoma City.

Maybe Jessica would be able to tell her.


End file.
